According to Mexican Press Reports, the City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico municipal police force, approximately 110 officers strong, were sequestered on Thursday, March 14, 2013, at 7:00 a.m. by Mexican Navy Marines, Mexican Army soldiers, federal judicial police officers, and State of Coahuila police officers as they changed work shifts and were loaded up in buses and hauled to the Mexican Army’s 14th Armored Motor Division headquarters in Melchor Musquiz, Coahuila, Mexico, about 75 miles away to receive advanced training and testing, surprising the police officers and their families.

Besieged by the second largest mass prison escape in the history of Mexico on September 17, 2012 and an intense and fierce fighting between armed civilian groups and military special forces since the prison break until now, the City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila municipal police has been decimated from its once 268 strong force to its current 110 members by confidence and drug testing by federal and state police groups. The surprised sequestration of the current police offices shocked and stunned the officers themselves and their families, catching them unprepared for the one month long advanced training they are to receive in the foothills of the Mexican Sierra Mountains in Musquiz, Coahuila.

Mexican elite Navy Marines, Army soldiers, federal judicial police officers and state police officers are going to patrol, guard, and protect the City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila while its municipal police force receives advanced training and testing. Over 300 Mexican Navy Marines and Army soldiers arrived earlier this week in two large military transport airplanes to undertake their new police dutiies and responsibilities for the next month.

Since the September 17th prison break last year, Piedras Negras, Coahuila has had intense and fierce gun battles between armed civilian groups and the Mexican military forces, causing increased violence and insecurity on this U.S.-Mexico border community opposite of Eagle Pass, Texas. American law enforcement agencies have been on high alert since the September 17th prison break to prevent and repel any violence from Mexico from crossing into the United States. Recently, on February 16, 2013, U.S. Border Patrol agents captured Mario Nazario Valadez, an undocumented alien near Brackettville, Texas, who was one of the Piedras Negras prison escapees and had been serving a sentence for murder at the time of his escape.

The once tranquil City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila has fallen to a lack of security and confidence among its citizens that many of its residents with legal visas to immigrate and/or visit the United States have sought refuge from the increased violence in the northern Coahuila border community in the United States.